The Philadelphia Section PGA’s Junior Tour’s wraparound 2020-2021 season lasted from the late pandemic summer of 2020 until just a few weeks ago.
It was a difficult time for all of us, many none more so than the young people who saw their school years thrown into disarray. There was uncertainty everywhere. Yet through it all, some pretty successful golf stories emerged.
In the summer of 2020, it quickly became apparent that golf was something that could be accomplished safely. Golfers old, young and in between flocked to the golf course. Still, the coronavirus pandemic did force some events to be postponed or canceled altogether.
In the fall of 2020, many school districts and leagues struggled with decisions regarding whether to let their student-athletes compete or not. Ultimately, the PIAA had a scholastic postseason, but some school districts didn’t allow their players to compete and some leagues couldn’t get it together in time to hold a qualifier for the District One Championship.
The Philly Junior Tour filled the void of competitive opportunities by continuing to stage its summer schedule and then holding its weekend events in the fall. For some kids, it was the only opportunity to compete.
The Philly Junior Tour had gone with a wraparound “year” in recent seasons. But it decided to abandon that model and did not start a wraparound 2021-2022 season in August right after the Junior Tour Championship as it had the last few years. The 2022 season will start when the spring schedule starts up in March.
The season-long award winners, announced a couple of weeks ago, are special in several ways. Their season was the longest year, running from August of 2020 until November of 2021. But it was the longest year in so many other ways with their young lives buffeted by ever-changing distractions on the outside caused by a virus that became such a challenging part of their lives.
The 2020-’21 Philly Junior Tour Player of the Year and Scoring Average Leader award winners were able to put all those outside forces aside for a little bit, remain focused on their golf and excel.
The two best players in the two girls age groups, the older 16-to-18 division and the younger 13-to-15 division, were the sister combination of Kate and Kayley Roberts of Phoenixville.
Older sister Kate Roberts had four wins, finishing in the top five in seven of the 12 events she teed it up in, as she earned Player of the Year and Scoring Average Leader awards in the 16-to-18 division.
Kate Roberts compiled a scoring average of 82.17 with a low round of 3-over-par 75 in the opening round of last summer’s two-day Precision Pro Golf event at Turtle Creek Golf Course in Limerick.
I got a chance to watch Kate Roberts play in the second round of the District One Class AAA Championship in the familiar surroundings of Turtle Creek. The Phoenixville sophomore had earned herself a spot in the final group for the second round of districts by firing a solid 1-under 70 at nearby Raven’s Claw Golf Club in the opening round.
She was paired with the defending District One Class AAA champion Ava O’Sullivan of Downingtown East, the 2019 district champion Sydney Yermish of Lower Merion and Unionville’s Mary Grace Dunigan, who had helped the Longhorns capture the PIAA Class AAA team crown in the fall of 2020.
If Kate Roberts was intimidated, it didn’t show. She grinded out a 2-over 74 at the Turtle, earning herself a trip to the PIAA Class AAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County by finishing in sixth place with a 1-over 144 total, six shots behind Yermish, the District One Class AAA champion for a second time.
Kate Roberts finished in a tie for 12th place with a 7-over 79 in her first shot at Heritage Hills in the state championship. it was a pretty nice scholastic postseason that clearly had its roots in Kate Roberts’ Philly Junior Tour appearances.
I’m guessing younger sister Kayley Roberts will be joining Kate in the Phoenixville golf program next summer.
Kayley Roberts had seven wins in 15 starts as she, too, swept to the Player of the Year and Scoring Average Leader awards in the 13-to-15 division.
Kayley Roberts had a scoring average of 84.27 and her low round came in the same round as Kate Roberts’ low round came in, the opening round of a Precision Pro Golf event at Turtle Creek. Kayley Roberts registered a solid 5-over 77 that day.
The sisters ended up in a tie for third place in the overall 13-to-18 scoring in that event, Kate Roberts finishing second among the older 16-to-18 girls to overall winner Evelyn Wong of Emmaus and Kayley Roberts finishing second among the younger 13-to-15 girls to Rachel Joyce of Quakertown. Wong was the runnerup to Yermish in this fall’s PIAA Class AAA Championship at Heritage Hills.
Tyler Debusschere had been looking forward to the 2020 high school golf season ever since he had helped Strath Haven win the first Central League crown in program history as a freshman in the fall of 2019. Debusschere was not chosen to be part of the lineup as the Panthers went on to win the first District One Class AAA team crown in program history and finish fourth in the PIAA Class AAA team chase.
But with the pandemic raging, Strath Haven played just a limited regular season and disagreements within the Central League ended the postseason before it ever started for Debusschere and his older brother Jackson, a senior. The Central League couldn’t schedule a district qualifier in time to get its players eligible for the District One Class AAA Championship.
The Debusschere brothers channeled their frustration with some really strong showings in the Philly Junior Tour’s weekend fall events. Tyler Debusschere rode that strong start in those events in the fall of 2020 to a sweep of Player of the Year and Scoring Average Leader awards in the boys 13-to-15 division.
Tyler Debusschere had nine wins and eight runnerup finishes in the long wraparound 2020-’21 season. He compiled a scoring average of 75.64 with a low round of 2-under 68 in a victory at Kimberton Golf Club as he was preparing for this fall’s scholastic postseason.
The 2020 scholastic season hadn’t been a total loss for Team Debusschere and Strath Haven. The Central League did put together a championship tournament at Downingtown Country Club after the PIAA postseason had been completed.
Tyler Debusschere finished in fourth place and Jackson Debusschere, who was on the roster as a freshman at Cornell this fall, ended up in a tie for fifth as they led Strath Haven to the team title. The Central League usually only recognizes the winner of the season-long dual matches as the league champion, but in the unusual year of 2020, Strath Haven did receive a trophy as the tournament team champion.
Tyler Debusschere got his postseason journey as a junior in 2021 off to a solid start with a 6-over 78 in the Central League Championship at the Turtle that enabled him to finish alone in sixth place and, more importantly, earn a trip to the District One Class AAA Championship.
Tyler Debusschere’s 79 at the Turtle in the opening round of the district tournament was not good enough to survive the cut in the individual competition.
Tyler Debusschere played a big role in helping Strath Haven make another perfect run through the Central League and give the Panthers their second dual-match championship in three seasons. He was better in the Day 2 team competition at Turtle Creek, carding a solid 2-under 74, but Strath Haven couldn’t recapture its 2019 magic as it finished in a tie for ninth place in the team standings.
Dylan Gute missed the cut at the District One Class AAA Championship to end his senior season at Downingtown East in 2020, but he had some strong showings in the Philly Junior Tour’s weekend fall events and again in the spring when the weekend schedule resumed.
Gute had six wins and 10 top-10 finishes in 27 starts during the long wraparound 2020-’21 season and that was good enough to earn him Player of the Year honors in the 16-to-18 division.
The Scoring Average Leader award among the older guys was probably decided on a mid-April Saturday when Liberty junior Matt Vital put together an otherworldly 8-under 62 at Reading Country Club that broke Sam Snead’s 72-year-old course record by a shot. Yes, that Sam Snead.
The kid who had made a huge splash by chipping in to win the Boys 12-13 division title in the 2019 Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals at Augusta National Golf Club the Sunday of Masters week, birdied half the holes at the classic Reading layout and actually had a bogey.
His accomplishment got Vital a little face time on The Golf Channel in the following week as news of his epic round spread around the golf world.
Vital finished with a 72.67 scoring average to earn season-long honors on the Philly Junior Tour. He was actually still eligible to compete in the younger 13-to-15 division – twin brother Michael was a frequent 13-to-15 competitor – but Matt Vital chose to go up against the older guys.
Matt Vital was the District 11 individual champion and finished in a tie for 12th place in the PIAA Class AAA Championship with a solid 3-over 74 at Heritage Hills this fall.
I’ll throw a personal honorable mention among the older guys to Matthew Normand of Lumberton, N.J. Normand might not have been the Player of the Year on the Philly Junior Tour, but nobody had an eight-day stretch like the one the left-hander put together in late July.
It began on his home course July 20th as he claimed a victory in the 16-to-18 division with a sizzling 7-under 63 in a Philly Junior Tour stop at Laurel Creek Country Club. Other than Matt Vital’s spectacular day at Reading Country Club, it was probably the round of the year on the Philly Junior Tour.
Later that same week, Normand added a 3-under 68 to his opening round of 1-over 72 that made him the overall winner by five shots with a 2-under 140 total in a two-day Philly Junior Tour event at Hershey Country Club’s East Course.
It was July 27th, exactly a week after his tour de force at Laurel Creek, when Normand got a share of the top spot in the 16-to-18 division with a 2-over 73 at Raven’s Claw.
In August, Normand was one of the most solid performers among the group of standouts who represented the Philly Junior Tour in a 14.5-4.5 loss to the New Jersey Section PGA Junior Tour stars in the 15th Annual Jon M. Pritsch Cup at Philmont Country Club’s North Course. Normand won his singles match and teamed with Conestoga junior Kyle Mauro to take a full point in their four-ball match.
In perhaps the most competitive division on the Philly Junior Tour in the wraparound 2020-’21 season, the coed 12-and-under division, Jason Mack of Delaware Water Gap swept to Player of the Year and Scoring Average Leader awards.
Mack, getting a big assist from whomever was driving him to all these events, teed it up 43 times, earning 14 wins and finishing in the top five a remarkable 37 times. It all added up to a 39.85 scoring average, pretty impressive for a kid who probably turned 12 at some point in 2021.
And it was an amazingly competitive group. Guys like Lawson Leeper of York, Anthony Proud of Stroudsburg and Trevor Sieben of Medford, N.J. showed up at a lot of events, occasionally riding hot streaks, making it look like a kids version of the PGA Tour.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently, chronicling the successes of Nick Gross of Downingtown and Yermish of Wynnewood. Gross, a sophomore at Downingtown West, and Yermish, a junior at Lower Merion, were the respective boys and girls PIAA Class AAA champion this fall and both competed in the Philly Junior Tour’s coed 12-and-under division not all that long ago.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see some of youngsters who were the nine-holers of 2020-’21 competing for state championships in the not too distant future.
At some point during the wraparound 2020-’21 season, the Philly Junior Tour, with minimal fanfare, gained a new title sponsor in the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board. The VFTCB has been one of the main cheerleaders for golf in Montgomery County, so taking over as title sponsor of the Philly Junior Tour fits nicely with its initiatives to promote golf in the region.
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